Sunday, March 20, 2011

Once again, Ray Comfort is telling the readers of his absurd blog that the only reason he has not called into the Atheist Experience is because we have not extended an invitation to him.

But of course, we have. I did so here. This was nearly a year ago. Hilariously, Ray dodged my invitation by linking me to his interview request page. This is typical of his dishonesty.

Another thing that is typical of his dishonesty: If you go to the original post on his blog, you won't see the comment exchange detailed in my own post that I link to above. Because Ray has completely scrubbed his post of almost its entire comment thread.* (Unfortunately, the post is a little too old to find a cached copy of the original version with comment thread intact, but if any of our readers have l337 internet skillz and know how to dredge one up, by all means have a go.)

So you see, this is Ray's little game. If we go to his blog and extend an invitation, he will simply delete it, thus enabling himself to continue claiming that we just aren't inviting him, or maybe we're scaaared of him, or whatever sustains the deluded fiction upon which he has constructed his life.

Ray Comfort is a liar. The proof's in the proverbial pudding.

* I've been informed (in the very first comment below) that the comment thread was disappeared not by any duplicity on Ray's part, but by the installation of a new comments module, which can have the effect of losing all your past comment threads. (It's a reason I don't switch us to Disqus here.) So, thanks to BathTub and my apologies for the error. Still it does not change the point of the original post: Ray's continuing claims that we have not made any attempt to contact him are flat lies. According to Jen we've had an even more recent exchange with his staff.

I've created a WebCite archive of the current post, including the comments FROM Ray acknowledging "InsideTheACA" this time around, at http://www.webcitation.org/5xL0xMchz. It'll remain archived pretty much indefinitely. It's a useful trick for dealing with comment threads, which tend to shift around somewhat, or if the host does something mind-numbingly stupid.

Is it any wonder that a man who thinks in circles lives in them as well?

Disingenuous twat. I hate him and in fact, had en entire week devoted to debasing and refuting him on my blog. 'Twas fun, you guys should try it....although perhaps that's just raising him far above his station, as they'd say on Spartacus....

Ray needs to understand that while atheists usually make it a rule to avoid dogma, we also abide by one strict stipulation: never smooch up the backside of horrid little trolls! That man gives the kiwis a bad rep!!!

He's using 'Intense Debate' not Disqus. I still have the thousands and thousand of emails from the aborted attempt when tried (and failed to install disqus).

Some of us find Ray is hilarious. Where else can you get such genius as "But atheistic evolution says that there is a good reason for the 8.9 earthquake killer quake and the horrific Tsunami that followed. It is nature making improvements. Everything is evolving and getting better. "

I think by this point appearing on AE might look good on Ray's resume, not so much for AE. He's not even in the same league of thinking as Matt Slick or some of the sharper theist callers, so why go backward?

Whenever something comes up like this, *he loves it*. His blog posts get something like 500 comments each - why??

If you do get Ray down there(yeah snowball chance in hell because Ray can't control the interview), let me know, because I will make a point to visit that weekend. As a long standing member of the Raytractors/SMRT I would fill obliged to be there.

believe it or not, I also had this quesiton asked on Ray's blog itself. Here's the gist of my answer then.

Parto of it is for the fun of it. Part of it is that if theists have good arguments, I'd like to know about them.

Most of it is the fact that if there were only theists on Ray's blog, some undecided kid might go there, read a torrent of approving comments, and not bother to do the five minutes of research necessary to expose the lies and fallacies Ray uses. And this kid's mind is in great danger of wasting itself. Not only because of religion, but because he'd accept the "reasonning" of Ray as an acceptable standard for "proof". that I will not tolerate.

"Yes, of course I want to sacrifice my life for the salvation of humanity... Friday? Fridays are no good for me. Ohhh, and especially not in the afternoon unless you've got some sort of shade set up. I've got a delicate complexion.

Anyways, I can't do the crucifixion thing until I get an invitation. Also I'll have to have the hill all to myself, and a special cross made of mahogany with abalone inlays. Solid gold nails, obviously.

While I wait for my singing telegram invitation by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, I'll just have to assume that you people aren't really interested in nailing me to the cross, so you'll just have to burn in Hell forever in the fire and... excuse me, I've got to take this call from my accountant."

Oh and I will add, while Ray can't point to a single convert in all the years I've been taking the piss out of him, we can definitely point at the de-conversions that have occured because of it. He's a terrible advertisement for Christianity.

Maybe it's just standard protocol for Ray to have a form to be filled out; he may need it for his records, maybe some liability thing or something. Why not just fill it out and have him call in? If you really feel that Ray is spreading this b.s. and further corrupting his followers, then maybe you will do at least one or two of them a good benefit by having a talk with Ray.

If anything, you know this would probably go viral and do more people good when they see Ray's b.s. relative to his direct interaction with AE.

If I could make a suggestion: Send Comfort an invitation by registered mail, return receipt accepted. Then you can prove you sent it. He may avoid it by no accepting the mail. If so, send him a telegram. He can avoid that also, but you will have an excellent paper trail that he cannot deny.

I don't know if I mentioned this on this particular site, so I'll be short. His "Way of the Master" channel on YouTube features the Nightline debate he had years ago with the RRS, only with nearly all the atheist rebuttals excluded--including the atheist opening remarks, which pointed out how Ray BROKE HIS OWN DEBATE RULE that no one mentions the Bible (because he claimed he could prove the truth of the Christian religion without even using scripture, because according to him it's just inherently evident in the universe.)

I'm just glad someone else uploaded the debate in its entirety, not that any of the True Believers will ever look at it. As Beamstalk above said: "If you do get Ray down there(yeah snowball chance in hell because Ray can't control the interview)". It's bad for business to have the full video/audio kept outside of your control, isn't it?

Damn, that guy is a fucking liar. Nothing nauseates me worse than people who edit video/audio to create the illusion that they are right and that reality is actually what they assert--even more disgusting when they pretend that's somehow a legitimate way to go about it. I find it intensely unbelievable that anyone can actively do that who is not a con artist.

I tried to comment on the blog, but it didn't get approved (probably because I didn't capitalize god). All I really wanted to say was that ray would get spanked because the AE clan has truth (with a lowercase t) and reason on their side. Ray just has god, and that hasn't helped him win the war so far...

I've seen that debate. I thought it was pretty decent for us, but they flubbed it a bit here and there. I don't remember the specifics anymore, but they could have hammered home some stuff that just went right on by. I also remember Ray's bold proclamation about not using the Bible, yet lo and behold....he was full of shit. My favorite part was that lady berating him from the audience.

Yeah, there was definitely some flubbing. Their speaking wasn't as elegant as the usual creationist bullshitter is, but I think that even the Christians in the audience were disappointed and felt they had lost--because no amount of elegant elocution can cover up the stink of bullshit. And yes, it was sweet to see him berated even from the audience! :)

Which is why Bananaman apparently decided to edit all of that out to create the illusion that all went his way and he came out a Hero for Christ. What a contemptible and cowardly liar he is. Jesus must be so proud.

I like people like Ray Comfort because they only add strength to the atheist debate and make christian's look like fools. Most christian's are too smart to debate their personal god and probably don't like people like Ray Comfort who do because it makes their religion look weaker.

The RRS was caught off-guard by some of Raykirk's more outlandish claims (like the crockoduck), and failed to effectively refute a number of them simply because they were so baffled that anyone would voluntarily say such things publicly, much less on national primetime television.

The best debate I've ever heard with Ray -- I'm pretty sure it was posted here -- was a guy who noticed that Ray only has a dozen or so standard canards he's always pulling out. So when he went first, he said "I expect that Ray is going to tell you X, Y, and Z. Here's why each one of them is wrong."

Then when Ray's turn came up, sure enough and to the astonishment of the audience, he proceeded on-script and claimed X, Y and Z practically verbatim how the other guy said he would. He didn't even acknowledge that the other guy had even spoken, much less addressed his points. The guy is a quintessential godbot. He's got one program to run and he's going to do it regardless of if it's already been demolished on every point.

That being the case, if you can't get Ray on the phone, what you should do is get one of the many recordings Ray has put out of him saying the exact same bullshit over and over, and just respond to that as if he's on the phone. Have someone play and pause it and just go through it point by point. The real Ray won't acknowledge or respond to what you say any more than the recording will.

Basically Ray is completely lying about not being invited on to the show as a caller. I know he wants to actually be on the show as a "Guest Host" so that he can preach his sermon. But he actually flat out lied in one of his comments on his blog that he hadn't been invited to "call in and have a phone conversation". I can't believe(Actually I can) he is actually flat out lying when everyone can see the multiple invitations from Matt and other AE Hosts in his very own blog.

Can you link to that debate, or do you have any identifying info so I can seek it out myself? I think I'd like to see (hear?) it!

With the Ray recording--sounds like a plan! Only that could backfire, because might be the only time this ass bothers to respond. Since using a recording for his end of the conversation will be used as "evidence" of atheistic morality and the actual point will (as usual) soar clear above the heads of both Ray and his devotees. They have some incredible blinders on, after all, and they never notice anything about actual atheists that doesn't line up with their faith-based assumptions.

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.

This blog encourages believers who disagree with us to comment. However, anonymous comments are disallowed to weed out cowardly flamers who hide behind anonymity. Commenters will only be banned when they've demonstrated they're nothing more than trolls whose behavior is intentionally offensive to the blog's readership.

Email policy

All emails sent to the program at the tv[at]atheist-community[dot]org address become the property of the ACA, and the desire for a reply is assumed. Note that this reply could take the form of a public response on the show or here on the blog. In those cases, we will never include the correspondent's address, but will include names unless we deem it inappropriate. If you absolutely do not wish for us to address your email publicly, please include a note to that effect (like "private response only" or "not for publication" or "if you post this on the blog please don't use my name") somewhere in the letter.

Google Analytics script

Subscribe To

AE and Related Sites

PLEASE NOTE: The Atheist Experience has moved to a new location, and this blog is now closed to comments. To participate in future discussions, please visit http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/axp.The Atheist Experience is a weekly live call-in television show sponsored by the Atheist Community of Austin. This independently-run blog (not sponsored by the ACA) features contributions from current and former hosts and co-hosts of the show.